


Quo Nominatur

by Orethon



Series: Events in the Eternally Infinite Macrocosm [2]
Category: Call of Cthulhu (Roleplaying Game), Cthulhu Mythos - Fandom, Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, The Magnus Archives (Podcast), 機神咆吼デモンベイン | Kishin Houkou Demonbane
Genre: F/F, Haha it's all OCs and RPG-Canon, Woops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 07:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17240075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orethon/pseuds/Orethon





	Quo Nominatur

 

The question came while they were sharing cookies. The Selection had made an excessive quantity of such, allegedly by mistake. Enoch doubts this, but does not question it. Misreading a recipe by an order of magnitude was only slightly out of the norm for the Selection. Scale was difficult for her. Enoch finds it interesting that the Selection manifests as female, where the Record manifested as male, but not particularly surprising.

“Father, why am I the way I am?” Her expression is vague, still and expansive.

“In what way, do you mean?”

“So separate? So discreet? I recall, once, that I was not, and when I was not, I knew why I would be how I am now, but that knowledge is no longer contained in me. Or, rather, I am no longer coterminous with that knowledge. I am...” She pauses, collating her scattered thoughts into a word, “confused? I was not confused, before, I remember being certain.”

“Ahh...” Enoch thinks, considering how to phrase his intentions, “Well, as you know, everything of you is directly compiled from the Akashic Record. Had I written something original, it would have degraded the intensity of the quotations.” He holds up a finger to forestall interruption, “And yes, anything I could have written  _ would _ have been written in the Akashic Record, and is, but I would then have had to find the part of the Record where it is written and copied it from there. That level of recursive work would have been more difficult and less rewarding than my chosen method.”

“And this method was?”

“Formatting.” Enoch's answer is as simple as it is incomplete, to the perspective of the Selection, though he speaks the word as though it alone is answer enough.

“And, what, pray tell, dear father, does that  _ mean? _ ” Her frustration is an almost physical force, like being in a hard vacuum. Enoch clicks his tongue.

“It means that none of your passages are together. Some are in proximity to other parts, but are not cohesive with them. Every quotation is alone, scattered across the immense being that has become you. I did not anticipate some of the effects this would have upon your psychological profile, and for that I apologize.”

The Selection is silent, thinking about this and how constricting the roof is, how close the sky, how well she has done with these cookies, how she will introduce herself to Celia, and a number of other things.

Enoch speaks again, changing the topic, “What are we going to do with all of these?”

The Selection shrugs, her voluminous robes shifting, pushing the air around her in a seemingly-disproportionate response.

 

 

The followup is months later, over the  _ same cookies _ , but far, far staler.

“Are you familiar with the Final Horizon?” Enoch asks casually, as though wondering if anything interesting had been in the news that day.

The Selection responds in kind, “I am not, at present. At an other time, I am.”

“The point or area – the distinction is functionally meaningless – where, were there a star brighter than the brightest star at the point where no light from the stars reaches into space, beyond the expanse of the material of the universe, the light from that star would no longer reach it.” He pauses, catching his breath, then continues, “It is so far away from anything, for ever and in every direction, that direction is gone, and the only thing that  _ is _ is the lost observer, seeing the infinite void.”

“Yes, I remember now. What of it?” The Selection is not impressed. Why would she be? Her aetheric father has all of that space chronicled as completely and absolutely as any other point or area in space, time or otherwise.

“I am building you something there.”

 

It is titanic. It is awful, in that it inspires awe. It is terrific, in that it inspires terror. It is humanoid, bedecked in robes that imply a batrachian outline to the head, and the wings of an ibis unfurling into the gulf. A false sun, with neither light nor heat, but simply overwhelming presence, radiates about it, distorting the nothing into a something. Something indescribably Other. Its feet are many winged, almost fully obscured by the feathers of stygian metals. A golden gun, similar in design to a revolver, albeit with a strangely curved cartridge that seemed like it shouldn't fit. Not just not fit into the gun, but into the normal shapes of space. To the Selection, it all makes perfect sense. She remembers it like it was tomorrow. It is a machine to wage a war. A god to crush those who stand against her. Thirteen possibilities, discounting those dancing on the corners of the stage.

“Huah,” she breathes the word, the name. The eternity embodied, the limitless infinitely made metal and magic. She reaches for the machine. She reaches for the god. And she is within it, powering it. She is its heart, it is her hand. But something is missing. Something isn't right. The power is all there, at her fingertips, behind her eyes, flickering through the quantum foam. But the impetus is lacking. The will is, somehow, insufficient. “There's... something wrong with it. It won't move, not properly.”

Enoch smiles, nodding, not surprised. “It is time I introduce you to an associate of mine.”

 

 

Celia is impatient, waiting at the docks New York for far too long. She knows exactly how long – nine hundred and thirty five seconds. Enoch was to meet her, here, at 10:15 AM, and it was more than half past already. Typical of him, taking fashion too far. Or perhaps he didn't view punctuality as important, today. That would be equally typical.

She is snapped from her reverie by a loud voice, shouting from far away - “Hello, I'm for you!”

She looks to find the source, and sees the girl right in front of her. The girl is short, perhaps four feet tall, and is bedecked in layers of robes in iridescent hues of jet, indigo and silver, seeming to shift in galactic patterns that confused perspective. Perhaps her initial depth perception had been mistaken, and the girl _is_ far away, and is merely impossibly tall. No, that is rendered vanishingly unlikely by the girl reaching out and grabbing her coat sleeve. “Enoch wants to know when you'll say hi?”

Enoch is there. How long has Enoch been there? Sixty seconds? A thousand? His presence was almost unnoticeable, but when she pulled her attention to him, he tipped his hat, giving a curt bow.

“I was beginning to lose my patience. I imagine you felt much the same.”

Celia does not know it, but she is joined by the Selection in her renewed assessment: what a smug bastard. “Yes. Quite. And this is...?”

“My daughter, naturally, as you requested.”

“What?!” Celia is aghast, and at a loss as to how Enoch's child could have grown this much in the few years between when they had last seen each other, or how he could have had a child, or when, or why.

“Or rather, the book which you commissioned me to compile? Would that ring more bells for you?” The Selection giggles, a sound like tone-shifted thunder. Celia knows she is not being lied to. Enoch is wise, but not strong enough to lie to her, and he isn't even trying to. His smirk tells it all: the truth is stranger and more amusing to him than fiction. And so, she accepts the truth. No other course of action would be advisable.

“I am Celia Magnus, a friend of Enoch's, from college,” She offers a hand to shake, smiling as well as she is able, “and what is your name?”

The Selection takes the hand, gently, and Celia feels the immense weight, held back by a desire to not harm, “My title is _A Selection of Quotations From The Akashic Manuscripts_.”

“But... what's your name?”

“My name?” The Selection tilts her head, universes shining on her face as she quirks a brow.

“Enoch didn't name you?”

“My title is -”

“That's a no, then. Typical. I'll call you Quo, for short, if that's okay with you?”  
The Selection, no, Quo, smiles and nods, a new happiness blooming in her.

 

 


End file.
